Billy Childs | Rebirth.

On his new album Rebirth, Childs reaches back to the start of his almost astoundingly varied musical experience—leading a small jazz band of state-of-the-art musicians with his piano playing.

At his musical core, Childs is an improvising pianist. He has the ability to equally distill the harmonic and rhythmic languages of classical music and jazz into his playing. The wide-ranging vocabulary on the taut track “Tightrope” begs the question of Childs’ love of classical music; “I’m not just jazz,” he stresses. His insistent pulse and melodically probing introduction to song is a key to the Childs’ musical identity: open to extended harmonic possibilities as they come along, taking a flexible approach to time and leaving an open door for input from his bandmates.